ABSTRACT
During the age of educational mobilization in Europe and North America (roughly 1850 to 1980), most non-Western peoples underwent neither the massive industrialization of Japan nor the socialist transformation of China. A deeper analysis of Third World conditions for human development must begin with recognition of the diversity, not only between countries but within each country, in the socio-economic and cultural patterns that determine the life chances of its population. Progressive political theories, re-cast in 'scientific' form as evolutionary stages of human progress, provided the intellectual framework that enabled reformers and revolutionaries alike to adorn their plans with a powerful sense of historical inevitability. Few unqualified generalizations are possible concerning life chances across the diverse cultural contexts of the Third World, but there are some conspicuous common features that must be taken into account in any cultural analysis: limited employment, child labor, limited government welfare programs, and a problematic government bureaucracy.
